i haven't been doing much. school is going well. we did two mock trial competitions. i love mock trial! the first one we lost, and we don't know the results from the second one, but it was a lot of fun. i've been sewing a whole bunch. so far since christmas i've made an apron, four dresses, a vest, a cardigan, a pair of 30s-military-esque shorts, a jacket for my mom, and a tie that i gave to my dad. i've started crocheting a globe . belle and i started a blanket and we need to get on finishing it. the true/false film festival is coming up, and i really really want to see waltz with bashir. there's also a ratatat concert and an of montreal concert coming up. i still have to find money for all this stuff. belle and i saw both slumdog millionaire and milk a while ago, and they were both phenomenal, though i wish slumdog millionaire hadn't wrapped up so nicely.

With Thanksgiving just about here, and with my homecoming soon arriving, I have been really, truly thinking very hard about the things I am most grateful for. It came down as such: I am most thankful, of anything and everything in the world, of computers and toothpaste and glasses and sleep, of eyes and pizza and culture and life, of books and pictures and science and art - for my family and friends’ love and support, as well as the countless, unfathomable opportunities and experiences they have given to me. I would not ever be able to go anywhere at any time in my life without all of the things they have done and sacrificed for me. I love all of them - all of you. Very, very much. Nothing else compares to how grateful I am.
On the 20th, so, Thursday, I will be coming home. I’ve learned so much about the world and about myself over the past three months, I can’t wait to share it with everyone! You have all been so wonderful to me that I was near a loss for words as I tried to type this up. I can’t wait to see you all.

With very much love and gratitude,
Avery

So I've got some news.
Ready?
I will not be spending the whole year in Germany after all.

I'll actually be home before the Christmas holidays.
Here's an explanation in the shortest and quickest terms I could come up with:

Basic Culture: what I’ve seen here is a very large lack of creativity that stretches to the un-acceptance of things or actions that are not done “the right way.” I’ve not found any sort of competitive drive, and standing out or taking any risks trying to do something a different way are seen as bad things. People very much want to blend in and have a very strong sense of conformity, to the extreme of “correcting” things.

School: the school I’ve had here is really different than my past experiences, teaching through memorization, with things taught specifically for tests and students’ work being almost the same (I’m not just talking about our once-a-week you-have-to-bring-your-own-supplies art class – notes, posters, and presentations are all formatted and written the same way), due, I’d say, to the lack of competitive drive and push to blend in. There is no after-school curriculum, no school sports, and no school clubs. I don’t think we even have school colors. Teachers are unmotivated and many seem to not want to be there. Schools I’ve had in the past have been really great about incorporating the arts into the curriculum and making them just as important as other subjects. Almost all of the teachers I’ve had in the past have really taken their students’ success personally, contributing many times out of their own pockets to the classroom and encouraging students to think on their own. The system doesn’t work for me, hands down, in any respect. It clearly has worked for Germany and is working for the German population, though.

Superiority: many people I’ve met here have a strong better-than-you-Americans quality. It doesn’t matter what it is. In school we have more subjects than you and so we’re better. We are healthier eaters and therefore better. We are smarter. We are more eco-friendly. We are better we are better we are better. Upon trying to respond in many of these situations – well, yeah, you have more subjects (19), but the majority are 45 minutes and once a week, with teachers who don’t care and classrooms without supplies and – I can get nasty if I let myself go on. I’d like to get it out there that whatever this ‘eating healthier’ thing is, it’s ridiculous. Yes, here there is great public transportation and eco-friendly things, but the United States is simply too big to have every single city linked by train, and Columbia was indeed listed as one of the US’s top-ten pedestrian friendly cities, by the way. Things like that. I don’t ever have the chance to get into my response, though, because I always get cut off at around the third word with an abrupt “no, we’ve learned how things are” reply. Teachers like to use me as an example of how much better their German ways are by asking things like "Do you do/have/allow this in the USA?" then giving some twisted facts to the class and really not letting me make any counter arguments.

Racism: it’s blunt and ugly. In school I did a presentation on the US once, which was basically me standing in front of the room and answering the teacher’s questions. They were basic things like, “What is different about Germany than America?” Family relations? Daily life? School? until we got to “Do you really have a lot of black people in the US?” “Well, then, the blacks and whites always fight because they don’t get along, right?” “At school do you really have metal detectors for guns and things for the black people?”
On a train to Berlin with my host mother once, a Turkish girl got on talking to her friend on the phone in heavily accented German. “Turk,” my host mom said with contempt. After a few minutes of rolling her eyes with a disgusted look at hearing the girl talk, my host mom turned around and gave a look to the girl which I can only imagine was as harsh as they come. After a few more sentences the girl said bye and hung up the phone, and my host mom turned back around with a satisfied yet still disgusted appearance.
Another time I was telling my host mom about how ridiculous I thought it was to have to bring in and pay for your own art supplies at school, which then went into how each country’s tax system is different. Apparently you get 150 euro per month per child in Germany, “… but those lazy Turks all just have lots of kids and sit around for the whole day and never do any work!”
For my birthday dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant, and I don’t even want to get into it.

Of course I miss my family, my friends, and Mexican food, but homesickness is not the reason for my return. It’s really, really insulting to think that people would believe that I would be so weak-willed as to come home just because here I do not have little comforts like my own family and friends. And of course Mexican food. It’s just really very personally insulting to me, not to mention completely false and ignorant.
While I am disappointed in myself for not staying longer, I really honestly couldn’t with the situations I’ve found here.
I have really learned a lot more than I ever thought I would: after seeing how things here are, I am infinitely more thankful for the wonderful school experiences I have had with fabulous, devoted teachers that I now I realize need to be paid much, much more. I am seriously not even kidding here. I also have such a renewed thankfulness for the arts in schools, and the drive to be innovative and unique in the American culture I know.
I would like to always look back on my time here and see it as the exceptional, unique opportunity that I was so fortunate to have had as part of my life, and not just the things that didn’t go well for me. I really cannot express how thankful I am to have spent this time here. It’s shaped my views and ideals, as well as influenced me and my opinions in many, many ways.

While we do not yet have a concrete date set up, I should be back within three weeks.
I will be seeing you all soon!

we also went bowling - me, rike, daniel (who is actually rike's nephew even though he's a few years older than her), wega (daniel's sister and therefore also rike's niece), and two of daniel's friends. we only played for two hours, but the cost was over 100 euro! this was due to daniel and his friends each eating two sandwiches and getting multiple sodas... we had only been given 70 euro by rike's oma, but luckily i had 40 on me, which i was repaid. daniel got in some trouble.


here is der tagesspiegel newspaper from nov. 5... i meant to ask for the 6 from papa gelke, but i got confused, so tomorrow i'll see if i can get the right one from the piles of newspapers.